It has been just over two weeks since the idea for moving the blog to a new site was hatched and a week since we launched the new site. Today I want to talk about the “featured image” that appears at the top of most posts. If you only read a post via e-mail, you won’t see the featured image.

Any time you are designing a graphic for the Web, knowing the proper dimensions to use is important. I studied the documentation for the theme we are using and it stated to make the graphics 660 x 330 pixels for best results.

Getting the graphic started is quite easy. In CorelDRAW or Corel PHOTO-PAINT, set the page/image size to the 660 x 330 pixel dimensions. Then it is time to get creative. For the header used on this post, I generated the background using the AbstractCurves plug-in. With any background object used in CorelDRAW, I make sure to enable Object Hinting.

After you have a background, you can add whatever you desire on top of it. The key to the project is learning the dimensions in advance and then designing to that exact size.